The reason I’m blogging today is because I realize how long I have been blogging for. I started in May 2007 and I’m closing in on almost 2 years of blogging next month. It has been a wild ride and I’ve seen the highs and the lows of the blogging industry as well as I’ve seen blogs start up, earn money, sell and move on.

The interesting part about all of this has been that I’ve seen a lot of common traits in the blogs that have done well and the ones that havent. Today, I’ll be giving you 5 reasons for success in the blogosphere and see whether you agree with them or not.

1) User Interaction - One of the big blogs of user interaction has been John Chow. He usually gives away something or he has a contest or he asks people to write questions for him. The level of user interaction that you maintain with your readers can definitely help you reach a much larger audience and keep them hooked.

2) Humor – A big believer in this area has been John Cow who started up as a blog pretty much in front of everyone and slowly grew into a big money making machine. John Cow not only provided content and information but provided them with a side order of humor and that was great. People enjoyed it and it was something unique. If you include humor, make sure its tasteful and that its actually funny and you’ll be able to retain your readers.

3) Video – Video has been a big part of many blogs, I have done a few of them, John Chow does a lot of them but a big believer in this arena has been JK Swopes or ImWithJoe. He really transformed the money making niche that was dominated with content and text based posts to video content that got together humor and content, all with a little twist. Joe was able to move up the ranks so fast that some of us (yes, me too), didn’t have enough time to see him run past us.

4) Experience – A lot of bloggers have great experience but one that I can think of is Syed Balkhi. He has tremendous experience from a very young age regarding web design and web production and that can be clearly seen in his content. A lot of people have the experience and the knowledge yet arent able to pass it on with much ease and Syed has been able to do that with several short tutorials that help his readers with even the smaller problems that they face on their blogs.

5) Current Topics – There have been bloggers that have come into the blogosphere and maintained freshness. They’ve provided good information, just like some of the top bloggers but have blended that with current topics and even introcued their readers to upcoming and new programs to make money. One such blogger is TheNetFool who has always introduced new money making programs and even brought current topics into light whether it was current news or financial topics. Its always interesting to see such stories and people like to read information in blurbs rather than articles and he was able to provide that very effectively.

Honorable Mention #6
6) Age – CarlOCab has to be one of the youngest money making bloggers out there. His age has been an inspiration to people who enter the MMO field and are wanting to make money. For being as young as he is, he has been able to attract a large audience because of his accomplishments at his very young age. People are always intrigued by someone who is much younger than them, yet, still makes more money than them. This is an honorable mention because age is not really something you can acquire to be successful but its something that I think is still a reason for success.

So, thats the post for today and I hope you enjoyed it and I’d like to hear your thoughts on it. Hopefully you guys have something to add to it. I’ll be back soon with another great post!

So, as many as of you know, branding is an important part of blogging. You brand your blog to help it do the following things:
1) Makes your blog easier to recognize and set apart from the rest
2) Help your readers connect to not only you but also your blog
3) Helps you get noticed better with current readers and new readers

So now that you know what branding does, you should know that if you ever write an eBook or post comments on other blogs, you can always use your branded image as part of the eBook cover or as your MyAvatar or Gravatar so readers will instantly know who is commenting or who has written the eBook. Its really helpful so here today I want to talk about if its a good idea to use yourself as your brand. Yes, using your own face as a brand is a good idea and here are a few reasons why I think so:

1) Unique - The one thing most people consider when creating a brand for not only their blog but for anything that needs to be marketed, is that their brand is unique. Now, think about it, how unique is your face? Everyone looks different (unless you have an identical twin or you look slightly similar to a celebrity). Aside from those similarities, you are a unique individual and so if you use yourself as a brand, then it will automatically be unique.

2) Easy To Recognize – When you use yourself as a brand, because of the fact that its unique, it helps you accomplish the idea of setting your blog apart from the rest of the blogs. It makes you easier to recognize because when people see you, they instantly associate it to your blog. Thats called good branding. Consider this, you see the golden arches and you instantly think McDonalds. You see a Red circle with white writing and you think Coca Cola. Its all about being easy to recognize and using yourself as a brand helps you accomplish that very easily if its done right.

3) Everyone Else Is Doing It – So, I think Ive always used my face as a brand since I started the blog but consider the other people that you can instantly associate to their blogs. Balkhis, The Net Fool, Im With Joe (like seriously, its hard to not know who he is), John Chow, Tyler Cruz, ShoeMoney and ProBlogger. All these bloggers and many others are very easy to recognize and thats because they’ve branded their blog really well by using themselves as a brand.

The idea is that if you see some of the bloggers I’ve mentioned, walking around somewhere, you’ll instantly be able to recognize them and that’s when you know that they’ve branded themselves really well. The concept is that using yourself as a brand can be very good if you do it right. I might have to provide some tips later on how you should use yourself as a brand but I hope you understand why branding yourself is not only a good idea but can be really beneficial if its done right. I keep saying if its done right because that also makes a difference but that will be discussed in a separate post. So, I hope you guys liked this post and I’ll catch you tomorrow with the results from my contest. Have a great rest of the weekend!

I have tried out Adwords and Facebook but in this list I’ll also be including the MSN AdCenter and Yahoo Search Marketing as well. This post includes a total of $225 worth of Ad credits for all the major publishing networks out there. Here is a list:

Facebook – $100
To get your $100 Facebook credit, you have to follow a few steps and to help you out, I’ve created a small step-by-step list for you since this one will require you to be familiar with facebook a little. First off, you have to have a facebook account before you are able to do this but here are the steps:

1) Add the VISA Business Network application and complete their registration process
2) Once the registration process is complete, wait for an email
3) The email will include a code such as 1111-2222-3333-4444
4) In Facebook, at the bottom of any page it will say “Advertising”
5) Once you’ve set up your ads click on the Billing tab at the top
6) Then click on “Funding Sources” and select “Enter Coupon Code”
7) Your funds will be added to your account

Google Adwords – $50
Google Adwords, MSN Adcenter and Yahoo Search Marketing as not as complicated as Facebook in order to get your free credit however, Facebook does offer a lot more money to experiment with. Adwords is offering $50 and all you have to do is sign up by clicking on this link. You will be required to pay a $5 activation fee.

MSN AdCenter – $50
MSN AdCenter is also currently offering $50 and all you have to do to receive your free credit is click on this link and complete the sign up process in order to get started. You will be required to pay $5 as an activation charge which is quite common and click here to sign up.

Yahoo Search Marketing – $25
Yahoo offers a much smaller advertising credit compared to the others and I’m not really sure why considering that it does compete with the rest but based on my research, they started off at $200 of free credit and have slowly trickled down to $25. Either way, it is something and can help you get started and all you have to do is click here.

Conclusion
So hopefully this post can help you get started by providing you with quite a bit of free credit so that you don’t have to risk as much money. Be sure to know that some networks will ask you for daily spending limits instead of monthly spending limits so keep monitoring it in order to avoid spending too much of your own money without realizing it. Either way, its not that complicated and if I can do it, then anyone can! Hope you guys have a great weekend!

Now lets talk about Affiliate Marketing. Here are a few tips to help you out

1) Finding The Right Marketing - There are many ways you can market the offers that you select to promote. You can use Facebook, Myspace, Google Adwords, etc. among many others. The idea is that some promotional methods may be better than others. You could have a really well established email list that you could use or choose between the advertising mediums I’ve mentioned. Its all about picking the right method.

2) Picking The Right Offers – Some people get caught up in CPA but instead pick the offers that you think will work the best or will sell the best based on the target demographic or your email list. You need to pick offers that will sell the best so, for example, if you are advertising on Facebook you have to realize that the biggest demographic is between ages 16-25 and so you would have to pick offers to sell to that demographic so you would pick offers like student loans over offers for better insurance.

3) Dont Be Skeptical/Afraid – The reason why most people dont really take to affiliate marketing that quickly is because theres a financial input required and some people are not ready to take on that risk. There will be a post tomorrow about how you can get some free credits to try out different publishing networks such as Facebook, Adwords, etc. For those of you who want to give it a try or are unsure of how it works and just want to get some hands on experience then experiment with a small amount of money just to get a feel of things. Its sort of like investing your money, you win some and you can lose some but one you know the formula then all you’ll be doing is winning, so dont be afraid to spend a little.

So hopefully this post gives you a little help regarding affiliate marketing. I’ll have a post tomorrow about different coupons for ad publishing networks so that you can get a head start on your affiliate marketing career. Anyway, hope you guys have a good weekend and I’ll post for you tomorrow!

1) Don’t Start Too Early – Sometimes, its not bad to advertise ads for 1 cent or $1 but you have to realize that it makes for a bad impression. Most advertisers may think that you perceive your ad to be worth nothing at all to be charging a dollar or less for it. Don’t start too early. Wait till the time is right.

2) Dont Start Too High – Problem is, that you don’t know what the right value is so you start off too high in the hopes that it might make advertisers believe that the benefit derived from buying adspace must be because of some great statistics. Don’t set your price at a certain level just because you think the ad is worth that much. Base it on actual statistics.

3) Look At Statistics - Look at what your statistics are and make sure that your statistics match the price. Think about whether the price is fair per subscriber or for your alexa and technorati ranks. I base it upon subscribers and unless I’m 250 and over, I won’t change the price of my ads. Even still they won’t increase by more than 20% if anything but even that is debatable. You want to entice your advertisers into realizing that the ad is a good value for the money.

4) Compare with Similar Blogs – Another idea is to see blogs that you believe are your competitors or are on the same level as you are. See their prices and compare them to what you had in mind. If your price is above average then you need to reconsider the pricing. If its below average then consider whether you want to sell it for that price or raise it to the average of other comparable blogs.

5) Would You Buy It? - The best way to see if your price is right is to decide (leaving your bias out) whether you’d be willing to pay that price for the ad. If you think that its a good deal then the price is right. If you think its over priced then its time to re-think the pricing. Its just that simple.

Is The Price Right For You?
So hopefully those of you, who don’t have your ads priced as yet or are re-thinking why advertisers are not sticking around, its time to re-evaluate your pricing based on my list. Have you seen overpriced ads? Do you think your advertising prices are worth it? Let me see!

Either way, being a blogger is one thing and being a famous blogger is another thing. You’re recognizable, People look up to you and you’re invited to speak at conferences and have dinners and spread your wealth (of knowledge, not real cash since we all know how cheap bloggers are).

A famous bloggers life is definitely not as easy as it looks. Imagine sitting on your laptop or desktop and constantly responding to emails, addressing concerns, writing interesting posts, preparing powerpoints and speeches and presentations and actually presenting in front of hundreds of people? Its definitely not easy. People always tell me that “how hard can it be to sit on your butt all day and warm a chair?” Well, if you stop and think for a minute, it can be a lot of work depending on what you got on your plate.

Now I’ll have to say that the pay for being a famous blogger exceeds the pay that the average Joe (not Normal Joe.. Average Joe) makes. The idea of being a famous blogger sounds really great to a lot of people but theres work involved. Its not all about driving fast cars, owning a nice home and smoking a cigar all weekend long.

I’m a part-time blogger and my life is just as stressful (mainly because of school though) but what is your perception of famous bloggers? Do you think that its easier than it looks or harder than it looks? I always think that you can look at it either way but theres no doubt, quite a bit of work involved depending on how popular you are. For all those like myself who are on the quest to being famous, hopefully we can see ourselves at the top of the mountain one day.

The question that comes up is how many posts do I have to write per week? Well, there is no real answer but anybody will tell you that writing fewer and fewer posts every week won’t help you retain readers and you’ll soon disappear into the blogosphere dust.

Heres what happens if you write too many posts – If you’re the kind of person that puts out content more than once a day, you’re actually exhausting your content unless you’re a top blogger. The reason top bloggers are able to churn out more than one post a day is because they have a lot more time to do activities, have lunch and do things that would be interesting to read about or watch a video about.

If you’re not a top blogger then writing more than one or two posts a day could mean that you’re finishing up all your good ideas and resources way too quickly and that could lead to the demise of your blog much faster than you’d imagine.

Heres what happens if you blog too little – If you blog too little and you’re not a pro-blogger then you’re actually not able to retain your audience. Basically, if I began to blog once a week then my reading audience during the week itself would be very very low and you don’t want that as an aspiring top blogger.

On the other hand, if youre a popular blogger and you decide to slow down blogging for a SHORT PERIOD (notice, not forever, but for a short period) of time then you should do okay. You’ll still lose traffic but you’ll be able to regain it fast enough once you start back. The story is completely different for new and aspiring bloggers because you just won’t keep your readers engrossed enough.

What if you blog once daily? – This is the scenario that most of us “mid-bloggers” use. I consider myself a mid-blogger because I’m not like John Chow but I’m also not a new blogger. If you blog once daily, you’re able to keep your audience hooked with a new article or post every day and that means that your traffic is highly stable and you have lots of return visitors.

This has been the most favorable for me in order to maintain my blog. I’m sure that if I started to slowly climb the top blogger ladder that I would automatically raise the number of posts I did in a day from 1 to maybe 2-3 per day.

I realize that many of you blog 2-3 times a week or something in that range but this was mainly to focus on some of the more common ways that people go about blogging. I wonder what your thoughts are on this and whether you think blogging once a day is enough or does someone like me need to blog more? Let me know! Have a great weekend everyone. You’ll be seeing the contest results on video this weekend so Good Luck!

This blog started off as a blog filled with random posts and then converted to a MMO blog and after realizing how crowded it felt, I moved onto the general blogging niche. Today, I talk about blogging tips, affiliate marketing and money but I really don’t miss being part of the MMO niche mainly because I don’t have fingers pointing at me saying “well, you’re not really making a lot of money”. The point of this discussion, you ask? Well, let me discuss a few points with you to help you understand what I mean.

1) Its not about Money, Its about readers – The big issue is that bloggers in the MMO field think that they need to focus on the idea of making money to actually make money but its not true. You need readers and traffic in order to make money. The idea is that more readers leads to higher ad revenue and more clicks and therefore more money so its really not all about money.

2) You don’t have to be MMO to make money – Heres a big one. Theres lots of car and technology and other niche blogs that make a really nice amount of money. You don’t have to focus on the MMO field to actually make money. I know a lot of bloggers that talk about blogging tips and make six figures so you need to realize that just because your MMO doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make money. Find a niche you’re comfortable in and then leverage your skills and knowledge in that niche to help you get to your goal.

3) More Ads Doesn’t Mean More Money – The fact that you have all the shapes, sizes and colors of ads doesn’t really mean that you can fool visitors and readers into clicking it. Oh, and don’t even try to hide it in the middle of your post, thats not sneaky, its just WRONG. Don’t do it! Most of us only have a few 125×125 ads, maybe Adsense or in-text ads. You don’t need all different banners and ad boxes in order to make money. Keep it simple and as time goes on your revenue will go up. Don’t start off looking like spam because it will turn people away.

So hopefully these suggestions make sense. I wonder how many bloggers consider themselves MMO. Do you think you’re in the MMO niche? Let me know. I know some of you are in technology and even poetry so being unique always helps. Thanks for hanging around till I got my groove back and my health back in order to blog again. Time to start stalking my favorite blogs, leave me your comments!

How Does It Work?
The way timestamping works, for those of you who dont know, is that you can actually pick a day, month, time and even year (for the extremely lazy) when you want to publish a post. This allows bloggers like myself to write a post and schedule it for a certain day and time. Most of the times though, the post you see is the one I’ve written early on in the day and not something from a few days ago. My material is FRESH but frozen until a certain time when its defrosted and served.

I wonder though, how many of you really use timestamp to schedule posts days ahead of time? I wonder if its really as effective, I mean if its a general post, it makes sense because your readers may not know but what if you write a “This Week In Blog” type post and you timestamp it, does it make a difference?

If you’re wondering what kinds of posts you can timestamp, then here is a little guide:

1) Timeless posts - This covers pretty much all types of posts that you may have whether its advice or tips but these don’t include posts such as case studies or anything of that sort which may not be as interesting if its timestamped for too long.

2) Reviews – A lot of us write reviews and I have a review being published in a week but a review can be timestamped if a certain date has been decided for it. If you haven’t picked a date as yet then you cannot timestamp it since the advertiser may want you to mention some things that have a time limit on it.

Posts you cannot time stamp:

1) Contest posts – you want to get these out as soon as possible. This is when you blog about someone else’s contest. Holding off until the last minute to post makes it a bit suspicious specially if youre a regular reader. If you’re a new reader then its okay but don’t timestamp your contest posts because it can make you look bad unless you post it quite a bit in advance of the contest ending.

2) Special Offers – Sometimes advertisers (paid reviews) or good deals come around that have a time limit such as the first 100 people to sign up or until a certain date and time stamping those posts until a later day could result in the deal expiring. This could make the advertiser very unhappy or your readers unhappy for not being timely in letting them know about a good deal. Make sure that your timestamp isn’t cutting it really close with these.

Theres lots of other types of posts that you can and cannot timestamp but going back to my question. Who really uses timestamp beyond one or two days? I wonder if that demographic is larger than I think. Let me know! Have a good weekend guys!

Before I get into my favorite links, I want to say a special welcome back to Nick from RomanDock who has always provided Enkay Blog with some great comments so its good to see him back. Also, my buddy Joe over at ImWithJoe mentioned me in his video and I really appreciate that. You should check him out.

1) Freddie Taylor – Freddie has some great Quotes of the week and in his most recent post he had a very inspirational quote that I think is important for every struggling or new blogger to understand. Its very inspirational and motivating to a certain extent so please check it out.

2) Linkers Blog – Danny has discussed an important topic which is whether Technorati is a good measure of popularity. We all know that to a certain extent we believe in Alexa and Technorati but he talks about whether or not, Technorati is a good measure of link popularity and its an interesting post.

3) Balkhis – Syed posted a nice tutorial about how you can get your feedburner subscriber count to show up as text instead of the little ticker. This could be useful if you want to integrate it more into your design and match the color scheme of your blog. Such posts really shows off his knowledge about the subject and is very appreciated by a lot of people

4) The Net Fool - The Net Fool posted his income report which I really like because its inspirational to many bloggers to have them try harder. I know exactly how he feels with juggling school and the blog and so I wanted to link back to him. Look at his numbers, you’ll be impressed!

5) Aff Boom – Wayne is a new reader to the blog but his most recent post about no cost affiliate tools really got my attention. I am new to affiliate marketing and so I think this can be helpful to those who are looking to learn a bit more without too much of an investment. I know many of us rather have no investment at all but still, this is a very informative post.

So, hopefully you guys are doing well. I plan on doing some link love in a good number of my posts from now on so if you’ve come across a post that you like, let me know, even if its your own! Hope you guys have a great rest of the week!